The Tale of the Disgruntled Employee – Part 1

Some people equate their work with their life. They are passionate about that they do for a living. Before they fall asleep at night they think about their jobs, when they wake up in the morning they are already thinking about how to solve a problem. At night they dream about completing their current project, just so they can start tackling the next one. None of this however would correctly describe the way n3m0 felt about his work.

He hated what he was doing to bring in the cash and despised his coworkers. The last eighteen months n3m0 had been working in the help desk department at Exibice Logistics. The single reason he had taken the job was that someone in a newsgroup had recommended that he take a low paid entry job, learn all he could from those above him and work his way up. The problem was that the server and network guys didn’t want anything to do with the help desk staff.

Instead n3m0 was stuck with “buddies” like Thomas. When n3m0 thought of Thomas his brain translated his name to Ned Flanders. Working at Exibice had if anything made it a pain to watch the Simpsons. If at all possible he would rather have had bonsai buddy as a colleague.

It was Monday, and as usual Thomas was there before n3m0.
“Did you hear about the guy with the red paperclip, that he traded for a house?” Thomas asked.Of course, n3m0 thought, that’s last week’s news.
“Yeah, I read about it.”
“Can’t do much but congratulate the man, can you?”
“Congratulate, no” n3m0 muttered, “you can’t”. When he had read about it he had been absolutely pissed. Why can’t I come up with an idea like that? n3m0 had been thinking hard after that but an idea never entered his mind.

The login scripts seemed to take for ages. What the hell are those guys doing? n3m0 dismissed the idea of checking the netlogon share, he wasn’t that interested. When his email finally loaded he could hear Thomas’ voice on the phone.
“Imagine, for just one red paper clip. I sure wonder what I could get for a blue one,” and then laughter which would make angels cry or at least kill off small animals. “Or a green one,” more laughter. “Pink!” n3m0 could see Thomas drying the tears from his eyes.

Dear god, spare me. n3m0 wished he had a hearing aid so he could turn it off. After ten minutes he was free of the painful experience and could in peace go through his inbox.

Later on when n3m0 looked up from his screen he saw an absolutely beautiful woman smiling at him. His heart leaped, he was about to smile back but she broke the eye contact and watched the others in the help desk department. Then n3m0 realized she was there with Mark Archer, the CTO of Exibice Logistics.

“Hello everybody, this is Jennifer from Beateval Services.”
“Hi, guys,” Jennifer said with a growing smile to the group.
“Hi, Jennifer” n3m0 found himself saying together with the rest of them.
“As you probably know, myself and Jennifer have been meeting a few times and have come to an understanding.”
Jennifer stepped in. “We’d like to inform you all about our plans.”